Each day around 6 p.m., I get a notification on my phone. It's a summary of notifications that I would have gotten throughout the day if I hadn't adjusted that app's settings to not bother me every time something's hoping to get my attention. Instead, those alerts show up as one mega-notification that I can peruse at my leisure.
And I have to confess: three years after its debut in the iOS 15, notification summaries strike me as practically useless.
But that could change later this year. Apple Intelligence is bringing a host of AI-powered features to the iPhone, and one in particular strikes me as the solution to my notification summary woes. Apple Intelligence's Priority Notifications capability promises to elevate more urgent alerts, pushing them to the top of a notification stack. As part of that, Apple says notifications will be summarized so that you can scan them faster.
If Apple Intelligence can deliver on just that one feature, it will be a significant upgrade that streamlines communication on your iPhone. It's the feature I'm most looking forward to trying out once Apple Intelligence features are introduced into the iOS 18 beta.
The current state of notification summaries
To appreciate what Apple Intelligence promises to bring to the mix, let's look at notification summaries right now. You enable it through the Settings app, by selecting Notifications and then selecting Schedule Summary. On that screen, you can schedule the summary and even set things up so that a preview shows up in the Notification Center before its scheduled time. You can also toggle on the apps that appear in your summary.
Maybe it's the nature of the summary feature that explains why I'm so underwhelmed by it. After all, the notifications I'm consigning to the summary are not the pressing alerts I need to see right away. Rather, it's low key stuff like the Health app nudging me to log my mental wellbeing for the day or the TV app sending along what amounts to an advertisement for an Apple TV Plus show. This is not very exciting or crucial stuff.
But the other big issue I have with the current notification summary is that it doesn't actually summarize anything. Rather, these are just the same alerts that I would have seen individually lumped together with no particular regard for importance. Nothing is condensed; nothing is highlighted. As a result, I tend to swipe the notification summary out of my sight just as soon as it appears.
The Apple Intelligence difference
Apple Intelligence promises to change that, at least if we take Apple's word for it. All we have to go on is screen-grabs from presentations at this point, but the relevant images for the Priority Notifications feature showcase summaries that are actual summaries.
There's a notification from Messages in Apple's Priority Notifications screenshot that doesn't show the actual text, but has pulled out the relevant, actionable info — someone's inviting you to dinner. Another summarized message can tell you about an impending deliver or an upcoming meeting.
I'm particularly interested in seeing how Priority Notifications works with an app like Messages. I'm in a group message involving people with an uncanny ability to send flurries of texts whenever I'm on deadline. During these times, I find it best to silence the constant pings from my phone and catch up with messages later. Right now, that means going back and reading multiple texts, but I'm hopeful that Apple Intelligence's take on notifications will provide a way for me to get the gist of what was said when my attention was elsewhere. More importantly, I'm excited by the idea that texts where I need to take specific action are going to get flagged so I see them.
That some texts will get prioritized over others suggests that the less useful alerts I receive — those Apple TV Plus promos or notifications from other apps that are thinly-veiled prompts to use their services — will get buried toward the bottom of any summary of texts instead of elevated to the top as they are now.
The waiting game
We'll have to wait to see how Priority Notifications works, as Apple Intelligence hasn't yet launched, even with the iOS 18 public beta coming out last month. Apple has indicated it's coming at some point, though, and likely ahead of the full iOS 18 release later in the fall.
Not everyone's going to see the benefit from the Priority Notifications feature either. Like the rest of Apple Intelligence, it only runs on iPhones with an A17 Pro chipset or later. Right now, that's just the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, though presumably the iPhone 16 models coming in the fall will have the silicon necessary to support Apple Intelligence.
I've got mixed feelings about many AI features, Apple's promised one included, but there's no such ambivalence about Priority Upgrades. If Apple can streamline and sum up my incoming texts, then Priority Upgrades alone will be worth the price of admission for the Apple Intelligence upgrades.
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